As a famously fickle state, it would be just like Washington to vote for America's first woman president in 2008, and in the same breath turn a woman governor out of office.

Gov. Chris Gregoire is projecting nervousness about her political prospects. The governor has been holding fundraising events at a non-stop pace, appearing at carefully choreographed town meetings, and staging an autumn version of a spring cleaning of top staff.

She gained a formidable Republican challenger last week, with Dino Rossi seeming to borrow the "change or more of the same" theme from Democrat Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign.

She is likely to be burdened with a transportation challenge next week if King, Pierce and Snohomish county voters turn down the sweeping package known as Proposition 1.

What will the governor do to get dollars for the decaying state Route 520 bridge? Will she and House Speaker Frank Chopp allow Sound Transit to turn around and put another expensive light rail package on the 2008 ballot?

A talented adviser will be missing. One dynamic, innovative department head in state government -- Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald -- was forced out the door earlier this year.

Rossi is a cool customer, a skilled salesman who senses a 22-year itch in the state's voters. Since 1985, the governor's office has been filled by four Democrats, the kind of dominance that makes voters ornery even when times are good.

The challenger confronts his own challenges.

If Rossi is a stand-up guy, why has he been reluctant to take stands? He was a non-combatant in the Initiative 912 gas tax battle of 2005. He hemmed and hawed last week over the RTID-Sound Transit roads and light rail package.

The Regional Transportation Investment District was, after all, a Republican creation in the not-too-distant days of GOP control in the state Senate. As a state senator, Rossi helped pass what was known as the MacFinkHorn bill after its three Senate sponsors.

Democrats did not lay a glove on Dino in 2004. In the 2008 cycle, they are intent on torpedoing his candidacy as it leaves port.

They've already hit Rossi with a Public Disclosure Commission complaint about an organization used to keep the challenger's name in the news as he decided whether to run.

Few people, besides partisan bloggers, pay attention to PDC complaints. But the Democrats have also chided Rossi about a YouTube commercial.

It has Rossi, in 2004, asking: "Who is really going to be able to turn around the business climate in this state? Who is going to turn this around so companies can grow? Me or my opponent?"

The spot then quotes conservative Forbes magazine, in its July issue, on the "Best States for Business," including such flattering lines as "One of Washington's big strengths is reduced red tape." Gregoire's picture flashes on the screen with the figure "210,000 new jobs."

Still, recent polls have shown that just slightly over 50 percent of the state's voters approve of the job Gregoire is doing, and that she leads Rossi by only 3 or 4 points in trial heats.

It's likely less a reflection on Gregoire than on the state government in which she has worked for 38 years. Voters find it ponderous and occasionally maddening to deal with, and identified with the care and feeding of interest groups.

Rossi is playing this card for everything it's worth. The challenger's initial mailing pledges to "take on business as usual," to "change the culture in Olympia," to "cut taxes" and "reduce out-of-control state spending."

Can Rossi project a friendly face to a state that has been trending Democratic?

How will he deal with the fact that a historical GOP constituency -- big business -- has found Democrats more accommodating on issues of transportation and public education?

Out of office, the Republican Party has turned sharply to the right. "My party has abandoned me," former three-term GOP Gov. Dan Evans said leaving a recent memorial service.

Evans was architect of the state's environmental legislation. The current Republican platform calls for repeal of the Growth Management Act. And one prominent activist in Rossi's Forward Washington Foundation proclaimed global warming "a hoax."

Eastern Washington businesses employ thousands of illegal immigrants. The 2006 State Republican Platform proclaims "no amnesty" for those illegally in the U.S.

The last three Republican governors -- Evans, John Spellman and Arthur Langlie -- hailed from King County.

But the county provided Gregoire's paper-thin 133-vote margin in 2004: This year, the GOP is struggling to hold on to its one remaining office -- King County prosecutor.

Still, interim Prosecutor Dan Satterberg gets pummeled by a popular Republican-aligned Web site, whose proprietor can't stand his moderation or that he gets support from prominent Democrats.

Will Democrats backing Rossi, the so-called "Dinocrats," hear a similar snarl from the Rottweiler wing of the Republican Party?

It's one of many questions, and reasons why The Washington Post's political Web site -- The Fix -- fixes Gregoire-Rossi as one of its five top gubernatorial races of 2007 and 2008.